Tasty Tails Is the Best Crawfish Boil in a Food Court I've Ever Been To

I drove up and down a short length of Legacy Drive in Plano twice, and then circled the Central Legacy Plaza once before I capitulated and called the phone number for Tasty Tails. So where is the restaurant that specializes in New Orleans-style seafood boils? It's tucked inside one of the coolest food courts I've seen in a while.

I sat next to a dude who was served a bowl of soup at a rolling boil in a hot stone bowl, and pancakes, tofu and all sorts of other dishes were flying back and forth on plastic trays. Tasty Tails looks a little out of place in such a setting, but a quick scan of all the tables showed they were fitting in nicely. Nearly half had steaming sacks of seafood spilling the guts of shrimp and crawfish. A few look like they were piled a few orders high.

The owners take Polaroids of their customers.

At the order counter, a chalkboard menu lays out your options. There's a slew of shellfish, boiled potatoes and corn, crawfish pies and po'boys. There are also boiled turkey necks, which I'm sad to say I did not try -- I was seduced by "the trinity," the same order everyone else seemed to be satisfied with all over the food court.

For a little more than $30, you get a pound each of crawfish, snow crab and shrimp, along with some corn, potatoes and sausage. It's a hearty meal that goes down best with some cold beer. (They entire food court is BYOB, and an Asian grocery located store in the same strip mall has plenty for sale.) It's more than enough for two people.

The food court on its own is reason enough to enjoy Tasty Tails, but the family that runs the place doesn't hurt things. They're beyond polite, and when I pointed out that their crawfish seemed a little small (which it understandable this early in the season) I was told you can call ahead and see what size they were serving on any day.

Food courts may not have the same ambiance as restaurant with fake fish nets and buoys hanging from the wall, but when the boil is good, the boil is good.